Abrasive tools utilizing flapping tapes or straps extending radially from the rotating hub are well known from the prior art. One of those devices known as ‘Fladder’ is utilizing rotating tools composed of layers of ring-shaped abrasive wheels (U.S. Pat. No. 4,518,452) with abrasive straps extending outwards radially and forming a cylindrical brush-like tool (U.S. Pat. No. 4,637,173). Plurality of such rotary tools can be used simultaneously (U.S. Pat. No. 6,015,334) to achieve high efficiency and uniformity of material removal and at the same time provide for a simple method of accessing of edges of pockets, holes, walls and other geometrical features of structural parts. This type of a tool is specifically desired in aerospace manufacturing process and is proved to be efficient. Deficiency of such tools remains the limited geometries of parts it can handle, inability to conform to the variety of heights of the part features with one setup and high overall cost of the machinery.
There are a variety of abrasive brushes with bristle like abrasive extremities. For instance in the US application #2008/0189923 assigned to 3M an abrasive filament includes abrasive particles imbedded into a polymeric matrix which can be moulded; the US application #2008/0189923 by Hundebol is utilizing wires and rollers to hammer the surface and provide cleaning by impact effect the U.S. Pat. No. 5,903,951 assigned to Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company where abrasive bristles are moulded; the U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,643,068 and 5,197,998 assigned to Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company and finally the U.S. Pat. No. 5,125,192 assigned to Dynabrade, Inc. teaches tools where abrasive filaments ate provided as a stack of flat abrasive sheets of variety of shapes with slits separating it into strap-like members.
One of the more common abrasive finishing wheels known from prior art is a flap wheel. Typically such flap wheels are formed by a radial array of sheets of paper or rayon cloth with a layer of abrasive grits such as aluminum oxide resin bonded to one side thereof. Such tools are useful for contoured polishing and blending of ferrous and non-ferrous metals, plastic and wood. However, such tools can only be run in one direction. The layer of abrasive adhered to one side of the cloth tends to wear the cloth or paper of the adjacent flap.
Limitations of such tools remain is their high cost, dictated labour intensive manual manufacturing processes.
There is a rotary tool by Okulov assigned to Dburr Technologies Inc. utilizing folded abrasive filament continuously wound into a helical groove pre-cut by hot knife in the polystyrene drum (PCT/CA2012/000719). This tool is cost effective and allows for a variety of applications, particularly ones commercially available from Fladder Company and utilizing machinery generally described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,015,334
Another disadvantage of Fladder type and similar other machines is their high cost which is prohibitive for small machine shops. The machinery itself has a reduced flexibility of it configurations and generally limits the width of the part to be deburred to 1.8-2 m. However, many commercial aircrafts require deburring operations on parts substantially wider and having complex shape with multiple pockets, edges and holes positioned at different height of the piece. Thus the need for a machine allowing deburring operations on such complex shapes and for larger widths exists,
Neither of the above reference available from prior art teaches an arrangement where the deburring machine will have modular structure allowing for tailoring of the machine for exact manufacturing needs.